Always Evolving 2014 Evolution Product Copyright

www.evolutionproduct.co.za

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EVOLUTION PRODUCT

Always Evolving 2014 Evolution Product Copyright

www.evolutionproduct.co.za

EVO

LUTIO

N PR

OD

UC

T

EVOLUTION PRODUCT

Centuries ago the |xam and other San communities were the first to collect and use plants for medicinal and ritual purposes. They depicted the invaluable flora on rock, as it was the only medium they had to their disposal. It was only during the 17th century that Western artists and collector-explorers arrived to study and record these plants. South Africas fauna was captured on paper by a variety of artists, but it was specifically the plant-curious Dutch who accurately captured the beauty of our countrys rich variety of botanicals.

A culmination of further research led us to other botanical collectors, researchers and artists and eventually to the Herbarium where we obtained some of our latest visuals. This Herbarium has been collecting and recording plants for the past 150 years. Contributing artists sketched botanicals in detail, from each leaf in all its stages of growth, to flowers that might have bloomed only a few hours a day. We want to continue their legacy and share the artists fascination through our latest collection: Field Finds and Veld Notes.

My personal fascination with interesting and geometrical shapes in plants is inspired by a family tree of plant lovers and collectors. My great grandfather from Graaff Reinet was a horticulturist and my great aunt Mary the local florist. My mom and creative inspirer, Isabella, is a keen gardener and lover of all plants structural and unusual, she rarelyvisitswithoutslips,plantsorseedsthatdelight.

This range is dedicated to all the Botanists, Artists, Explorers and keen gardeners who create botanical bliss in our beautiful country.

Field Finds and Veld Notes

Cape Field of Vision

It was their passion for knowledge and a desire to explore the unchartered spaces that lead the early explorers to the Cape on adventures into the hinterlands of Southern Africa. They came not to conquer but to meticulously record the plants, trees and animals they encountered on their perilous journeys into the veld. Many of them were devoted to sketching in scientific detail the things they discovered here and it is from their amazing work that we drew inspiration for our new line The Magic Veld - Circa 1600 - 1800

Our designs were inspired by the explorers as a collective, but also by the stories of some of the most outstanding of these intrepid travellers. It is through their eyes that we get a glimpse of what Southern Africa looked like several centuries ago.

To view the admirable perfection of nature in a new light, and not less beautiful in the wilds of Africa was the irresistible motive which led me on.

- 18th Century explorer William BurchellI,Travels in the interior of Southern Africa

The Magic Veld Circa 1600 - 1800

The first Explorer we noted was Hendrik Claudius born 1655 in Breslau. He was a German painter, apothecary and physician, noted for his 17th-century watercolours of South African plants and animals.

Claudius arrived in the Cape Colony from Batavia in 1682 to look for plants of medicinal interest. It is thought that in 1682 he joined Governor Simon van der Stel and that he was responsible for the illustrations in an account of the Namaqualand expedition.

Most of what is known about Claudius stems from his 1685 meeting with the visiting French Jesuit missionary, Father Guy Tachard. After seeing two large volumes of his works, Tachard ventured that Claudius was a competent painter of plants and animals, and that if the books had been for sale he would have purchased them for Louis XIV of France. Some of his further and rather indiscreet revelations in Voyage de Siam led to Claudius' deportation to Mauritius and Batavia by Simon van der Stel, Tachard wrote: "It is from him that we obtained all our knowledge of the country. He gave us a little map made by his own hand." This was during a period when the Dutch occupiers of the Cape were extremely suspicious of the French and their designs on the southern tip of Africa.

Today very little is known about Claudius.

He drew the lizards, the snake, the fish and the crocodiles.

Hendrik Claudius

The second explorer was Robert Jacob Gordon born on the 29th of September 1743 Doesburg, Gelderland and died on 25 October 1795 in Cape Town. He was a Dutch explorer, soldier, artist, naturalist and linguist.

Although of Scottish descent, Robert Gordon's allegiance and service lay with the Netherlands. He went on more expeditions than any other 18th-century explorer of Southern Africa. His journeys are recounted in journals discovered in 1964. He was responsible for naming the Orange River and for introducing Merino sheep to the Cape Colony. In addition to French, Dutch and English, he spoke Khoi-San and Xhosa.

Gordon was a diligent recorder of data such as altitude, compass heading and hours travelled.For most of his journey he followed a well-travelled route, sometimes joined by others going the same way. His equipment was carried by a single wagon, while he was on horseback riding across the veld, observing, recording and occasionally hunting.

Gordon's Bay, in the Western Cape, is named after him.

Gordon committed suicide on 27 October 1795, apparently because he could not prevent the British occupation of the Cape.

He drew the Caterpillar Euphorbia and the Melon Euphorbia

Robert Jacob Gordon

We also noted the famous explorer Francois Le Valliant born on the 6th of August 1753 in Paramaribo, Dutch Guyana, now known as Suriname.

Recognised as the first significant modern ornithologist, French traveller and social critic Franois le Vaillant spent the years 1781 to 1784 in southern Africa. He created a window on southern Africa through his writings, watercolours and maps that vividly depict both nature and human interaction at that time. The exhibition foregrounds Le Vaillants multi-dimensional legacy as explorer, naturalist and social critic.

When he returned to France with his extensive collection and colourful records, Le Vaillant effectively branded South Africa as one of the most fascinatingly exotic destinations in the world.

He further created an extraordinary map of his travels for King Louis XVI. He plotted the animals he encountered on his travels on this map. A visit to the Iziko Museum in Cape Town in 2013, which focused on South Africas early history - further enhancing our fascination with the first encounters of explorers in Southern Africa.

Ironically enough, after all his illustrious travels and publications, Le Valliant died a pauper in 1824.

He drew the Yellow Wood Tree.

Francois Le Valliant

Then there was also Rev. John Campbell, who was born in March 1766 in Edinburgh, Scotland and died on 4 April 1840 in Kingsland, London. He was a Scottish missionary and traveller.The London Missionary Society sent him to the Cape in June 1812 to inspect the mission stations there. He set off from Cape Town in February 1813, calling in at Bethelsdorp and Grahamstown, then the military headquarters. Heading north he visited Graaff-Reinet, Klaarwater (later Griquatown) and Litakun, the kraal of the Batlhaping kgosi (chief) Mothibi.

He wrote an account of this trip in "Travels in South Africa, undertaken at the request of the Missionary Society" that was published on his return to London in 1815. The town of Campbell, east of Griquatown, was named after him.

Campbell returned to the Cape in February 1819. On this visit he instructed the missionary Robert Moffat to start a mission among the Bechuana tribe. Campbell once more ventured into the interior, leaving Cape Town in January 1820 and travelling as far north as Mosega in Barotseland. He left for England in February 1821, publishing two further volumes covering his second journey. He subsequently delivered a series of lectures on his missionary work.

Campbell painted the coloured botanicals, some from the Stellenbosch area and some incorrectly filed as South African but later discovered to be Indian. Among these - Grass and twig, Sorghum and Grains.

Rev. John Campbell

Another interesting 19th century explorer, George French Angas, was born on 25 April 1822 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England and died on 4 October 1886. He was an English explorer, naturalist and painter.

Angas travelled to South Africa in 1846, where he spent two years in Natal and the Cape, working on a series of drawings and watercolours, which were published in 1849.

In this book were views of Cape Town, Durban, Wynberg, Genadendal, Paarl and Somerset West and plates depicting the local ethnic groups such as Khoi-San, Malays and Zulus.

We used the following Landscapes from his collection: Paarl Mountains and Umnonoti River in Natal

George French Angas

Finally there is (John) Thomas Baines who was born on 27 November 1820 in Norfolk, England and died in Durban on 8 May 1875. He was an artist and explorer of British colonial southern Africa and Australia. When he was 22 he left England for South Africa aboard the "Olivia" and worked for a while in Cape Town as a scenic and portrait artist. He also worked as official war artist during the so-called Eighth Frontier War for the British Army.

In 1858 Baines accompanied the famous David Livingstone along the Zambezi, and was one of the first white men to view Victoria Falls. In 1869 Baines led one of the first gold prospecting expeditions to Mashonaland in what later became Rhodesia and today Zimbabwe.

From 1861 to 1862 Baines and South African explorer James Chapman undertook an expedition to South West Africa. Chapmans Travels in the Interior of South Africa (1868) and Baines' Explorations in South-West Africa (1864) provide a rare account of different perspectives on the same trip. This was the first expedition during which extensive use was made of both photography and painting. In addition both men kept journals in which, amongst other things, they commented on their work.

Baines drew the Flamingo, wrongly labeled to be in Swakopmund, rather than Walvischbay.

Thomas Baines